


A Little More Than Kin

by valderys



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: sga_flashfic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-30
Updated: 2010-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-10 20:52:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valderys/pseuds/valderys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teyla reflects on an old tale and what it tells her about the Lanteans and their homeworld.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little More Than Kin

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2007 for the Folklore Challenge.

'Once upon a time', the Lanteans say. It is an odd phrase, compared to their normal speech. It is archaic she was told. From the distant past, used still today to indicate a… story.

Those of Athos have a similar phrase, they say 'My father told me once, and it was this…' For wisdom is handed down in stories, and fathers should never be forgotten. Sometimes, for all their knowledge, Teyla wonders if the Lanteans even know what the stories are really for.

***

P3X-6935. Or the planet of the Tower. Or the Planet of the Sluts, if you are Rodney McKay. Or 'that dammed planet – worse than Elsinore. Machiavelli would have vacationed there and loved the velvet collars' if you are John Sheppard. As usual the cultural references pass her by, but the fact that Rodney stops with his mouth open, and rounds on Sheppard, accusing him of holding out on him, and wanting to know what he thinks he's doing claiming to know Hamlet, makes Teyla intrigued.

She asks about the names and discovers that Elsinore is a dwelling, a court of a royal family, and that Hamlet was a dispossessed scion – usurped from his rightful place, and vengeful for his father's murder. Teyla approves, as far as this goes, for a father taken untimely, for any other reason than the Wraith, is a transgression that passes bearing. She has a difficult time, sometimes, understanding the many, many ways the Lanteans seem to dwell on this, and so many other possibilities. She would think that their world was blood-spattered and bereft of life, if she did not also know that it teemed with people, more than she could even imagine. She wonders if it is the many teeming people that cause them to… become unsafe. If she has a disagreement with someone, she can walk away, and the wind and the trees and the grass will cleanse her anger. But perhaps the Lanteans' people do not have that.

She does not have that either, not anymore. But the east pier is long, and the breeze from the sea is nearly enough. She can breathe again at least.

Machiavelli she dismisses, once he is described. He was a politician. A skilled one – but his intrigues are not for her.

But Hamlet… Hamlet is the one who draws her interest. He is the creation of a famous poet, an old tale, apparently told and then re-told. The famous poet merely took the words of his fathers and made them beautiful once more. Teyla approves. The language too intrigues her – it is more archaic than any yet encountered from the Lantean's world. She barely understands it, and yet the sounds it makes lulls her into peace.

Dr Higgins lends her a file that she can play in her quarters – an 'audio book'. She explains some of the words to Teyla too, and slowly the sounds become more than that. They gain meaning, and then resonance.

Ophelia annoys her. A healthy fruitful young woman, killing herself for such a little despair. It is not unknown to the Athosians, but it is such a waste. Laertes too, for compounding her fault, for taking too much upon himself, although she sympathises – his whole world is gone. But that is a common occurrence under the Wraith – he should learn to bear it, he should start again. Not kill himself in the guise of revenge. In fact, there is entirely too much talk of suicide in this story – it does not sit well with her. But Hamlet himself – he, she understands. The vacillation, the pain. Doing what must be done with cold calculation. But even he, she cannot entirely forgive. He does not think of his people, not once. He wants his birthright but he thinks only of himself and his father's poor dead shade, when armies march over his land, and his people suffer.

No, of all the people in the story of Hamlet, the only one she really holds up and admires, is the friend. Horatio. Whose loyalty is without question. Who lives until the end. He will reverence his beloved lord's memory, even as he serves Fortinbras, the foreign prince. That is a man that Teyla can admire, even as she hopes that it will not come to that.

But if it does, she knows she will remember the Lanteans, she will revere their memory and their achievements, but she will live on, and she will deal with whomever she must, for her people's sake.

She will not like it – but that is the lesson that the story of Hamlet tells her. Fathers should not be forgotten, says the teachings of her people, but their wisdom is passed down in fables. Not in blood and revenge.

She thinks of the last line that ends any tale her people tell.

'Such is the story that our father told us'.


End file.
